It's springtime again
by Etrangere
Summary: Subaru's musing as he goes home, post '99. Written for the Going home challenge at Togakushi Shrine.


TITLE : It's springtime again  
PG  
DISCLAIMER : The collar around those babies say "propriety of Clamp", not mine.  
NOTE : Xynnie-chan owns my soul for betaing it. And i blame Tamchronin and Rhole for writing it. Written for the Going Home challenge at Togakushi Shrine. 

o O o

"_Soldiers live, and wonder why_", Glen Cook 

You would think that, after a while, he'd get weary of the Sakura blossoms' beauty. That year after year and murder after murder, the pink sweetness would raise nothing but sickness in him. 

It doesn't. 

Every time spring comes and the streets are filled with falling flowers, the old wound opens up, a strident ache like disaccorded violins in his heart, scattering his concentration like paper strips to the wind. 

And yet. 

Yet, he thinks the sakura beautiful. Just like he did, decades ago, when a gentle stranger in high school uniform told him a legend about Sakura tree and he had wondered for the first time how could something so distressing be so beautiful at the same time. 

He is no wiser today; he gave up trying to understand. Some things are just as cruel as they are ravishing. In a way, he loved them more because of it. Just as he loves the sakura more for awakening within his soul the pain which he treasures and cherishes, stroking it like a small animal against his stomach. 

Maybe he ought to ask Kamui, who lost more than he ever did held and who had more wishes ripped up before his eyes why we can love the things that destroy us. And why indeed, sometimes being slowly destroyed is the only way we find of remaining alive. 

Walking by the sakura-adorned road, it summons a small smile to remember. 

There was a time when he never thought that he could look forward to life anymore. When he thought grief would bury him, would swallow him and spit out only an animated shell to pretend to be Sumeragi Subaru. 

But fate, or maybe hazard, was more demanding and cruel than that. It kept asking for more - and giving you more - stubborn boys with a trembling voice, gifts of eye anchoring a drifting soul, and more crosses to bear than you could ever imagine to ground you to the hungry earth. Somehow it pulled you over, ripping you apart all the way through, but kept you alive. And one day, besides the stinging ache, within the unbearable sorrow, across the wrenching guilt, you found yourself enjoying the sound of children's laughter again. 

Like wildflowers blooming amid the wreckage. 

So strange and odd a realisation that despite the scars and the damage, he had found himself smiling at it. 

This was the world. Bared of wishes. Devoid of meanings. Emptied of any great plans or necessity. 

Beauty, everywhere. 

Colours, shining or mute, nuances of every kinds, life aplenty, growing from death everywhere, the sound of voices a true music of irony. And people, at all times, who endured, who strived, despite the taxes and the worries, the pettiness and the sacrifices, death and agony, they still marvelled at the most futile little pleasure. 

There could have been bitterness to it. There should have been, maybe. That after all the shattering experience that had been 1999, mankind hadn't really changed, the earth hadn't really changed, and even he, who had lost his dearest persons and wishes twice, could find pleasure again in a very vain thing. That no matter how crippled he was, he could still walk. But there was none. After all, if he was as good as dead, then every little bit of joy was pure gratuity, and every little good he could offer was a grace, priceless and infinite in a random world that wouldn't scale anything. 

It was a fatalistic conclusion but then Subaru was a fatalistic man who had learned a long time ago not to argue with destiny anymore. It never helped any to struggle. 

So, that day, when Kamui did his usual visit - steady like a clockwork, moved by the magnetic attraction of pain and guilt - he didn't push away the comforting hands and accepted this latest gift of existence. 

And it wasn't love - how could it be, when they had both loved already so vividly and so desperately only to be torn to shreds ? And it lessened no anguish - nothing could ever. But it brought something new to both their life, something precious and absurdly delightful, something to savour in the long boring nights after you realised that when things hadn't killed you, there were no choice but to survive, and it was both bitter and sweet and incredibly selfish, but it suited both of them. 

He finishes walking to the house, and sits down to wash the blood from his hands, contemplating the still falling sakura blossoms in its senseless beauty. 

You do get used to pain. It is tragic, it is comic, but it is true. A first love is in full colours, as dazzling as radiating sunrays. What he's got with Kamui is different, muted and toneless, but warm and reassuring like a small candle in the darkness. 

Two steps and he's at the door. "Tadaima", he calls in. 

It is both tender and brittle at times, as they clash against their mutual confines and needs for loneliness. This domesticity is soothing as well. 

"Okaerinasai", comes the answer from the kitchen, as well as a smell of cooking meat. 

And it's not happiness, neither is it peace, but somehow, it feels like home. Maybe that is enough. 

xx owari xx 


End file.
